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If anyone looks at the history of piano teaching....
Piano lessons are mostly given privately, one-on-one. We don't actually have much of a view of how teaching is done, or was done. There are some anecdotal stories of famous people who were teachers, told by their students or assistants, but generally this is at an advanced level. The closest we have come to it actually is happening right now with the advent of the Internet, where students can share their stories, teachers can talk to one another and so on. So you have a certain set of repertoire and maybe etudes and scales and maybe theory that were taught and/or are they taught. How are they taught? What does the teacher do in the lesson? What type of practising is the student given to do at home? What kind of guidance for the practising? These are the very things that we are exploring right now. In fact, the teachers in the teacher forum are asking the same kinds of questions.
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keystring, I have read your post, here:
If anyone looks at the history of piano teaching....
Piano lessons are mostly given privately, one-on-one. We don't actually have much of a view of how teaching is done, or was done. There are some anecdotal stories of famous people who were teachers, told by their students or assistants, but generally this is at an advanced level. The closest we have come to it actually is happening right now with the advent of the Internet, where students can share their stories, teachers can talk to one another and so on.
So you have a certain set of repertoire and maybe etudes and scales and maybe theory that were taught and/or are they taught. How are they taught? What does the teacher do in the lesson? What type of practising is the student given to do at home? What kind of guidance for the practising?
These are the very things that we are exploring right now. In fact, the teachers in the teacher forum are asking the same kinds of questions.
________________________________________________
Well, I pop in almost daily into the teachers forum but I have not seen too much discussion of technique, lessons given to students, the guidance for practicing. In the various forums, lots of people speak of not liking the music they have to play, they don't like their teacher and they are always looking for a better teacher. Of course, in the digital forum, NOTHING is spoken about what music they play or at what level they play - only that their major focus is to find the best and cheapest digital on the planet. And teachers complain about no-shows, parent issues, student bad attitude, don't practice, on and on.
To me, the most important thing is not the teacher, not the piano - digital or acoustic - BUT the goal of learning they best that you can be piano player. So if I read anything about repertoire, or technique - I make a note and tack it to the wall. The reason I say that the teacher is not important - is in the context of a lawyer. You can have the best lawyer on the planet, but if you tell lies, no lawyer can help you. If you have the worst lawyer on the planet, the judge and the jury can see through the lawyer,s inability and the client will win. So in the same way that if a person has a great teacher, the best, but complains about their instructions they are given, the music to have to play, they will go nowhere, but if a less adequate teacher has the best student on the planet, the student will make the best of teacher, but still go on to be the best because they know how to make the best of a bad situation
Last edited by Michael_99; 07/21/13 09:58 PM.
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Journal 1: Sun. 7/21/13. Started to work out fingering. I penciled into my Henle edition and tried out the fingering of my edition of 18 Preludes, edited by Willard Palmer and published by Alfred. (I tried them out by playing HS, slowly so as not to make errors.) The Palmer fingering works well in most places, solves some problems in a few places that would have eluded me, and seems remarkably wierd in a few measures. I went back and forth, trying it slowly in Palmer's fingering and in the fingering that makes more sense to me, but am still undecided.
This edition also has articulation suggestions (slurred throughout, for the most part) and dynamics suggestions. I'm not sure about these; I'll listen to some recordings and see if I get any ideas. I really would like to read some of the treatises (both historical and current) about Baroque style.
Journal 2: Sun. 7/21/13. Searched on "BWV 927" on YouTube and listened to several recordings. Of notable interest are Angela Hewitt, Glenn Gould (listed as Marcelo Gandolfi for some reason), UIPianoPed, ecolepiano. Also listened to several student renditions which ranged from adequate to painful. There are subtle issues to work out, like which voice to bring out when, what articulation to use, and just how fast to go (although judging by the exemplars, the only answer to that is: fast). But the biggest glaring feature that distinguishes the performances I like from the others, is an open and flowing quality to the playing. For example, in the figures of three eighth notes at the beginning, these can either be bashed out (bad) or touched lightly (good). Even if they are brought out above the sixteenth notes, as when they appear in the right hand (in some performances), the good performers still give them a light quality. I'm not even sure if these are the right words. The huge challenge for me will be to capture this overall quality of the piece, that I can't even describe. I can hear it though, so maybe I will be able to use my hearing to guide my playing in the right direction.
I don't hear any added ornaments, except perhaps a RH mordent at the end. This is good; I think there will be enough challenging here for me without also trying to get good at fast ornaments. Something to think about for the future though: developing my ability to ornament. I think I'd like to work at that purely as exercises to start with; whenever they come up in a piece I'm too impatient to learn the piece to want to take the time I need to get the ornaments right (maybe Bernhard's method rigorously applied would help me with that problem in learning an ornamented piece, though).
Another big challenge for me will be bringing this up to tempo. I've never played these kinds of sixteenth note runs this fast.
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The only thing anyone needs to know about practicing any music at any level during your lifetime, is to open up a music book, look over the music, do you know the names of the notes in the piece in the treble clef and the bass clef. Can you read through the measures and count the values of the notes and the values add up in each measure to 4/4, 2/4, 3/4, 6/8, and lots of others. I disagree. When the intuitive method suggests practicing your whole piece by repetition endlessly (by the time you get it right, if you ever do, you'll want to quit after the first successful attempt) until you can eventually play it, then, in actuality, you need far more than just a music book to know how to play. But then do we really need anything? What role does needing play in relation to learning to play piano, anyways? Let's assume you're practicing a little bit more efficiently than above and practicing your music not as one giant whole, but as sections. You still may have little to no idea how long these sections should best be, how and for how long you should practice these sections, how to deal with the coordination difficulties in putting hands together and how they may relate to the above, etc. This is the category the majority of players fall under (as a result of the methods of the majority of teachers). Bernhard is doing nothing more than providing a set of general rules or suggestions with which to enhance your practicing by defining some of these arbitrary variables. He himself says that you shouldn't believe him, but that you should try them - and to be more specific, test them scientifically by learning one new piece of x difficulty with whatever current method/approach you use and then learning a second new piece of a similar difficulty of x and then comparing the results. Chances are, one approach's results will stick out more than the other (in some cases, significantly so). When, like me, after almost two years of playing (as well as what you thought constituted practicing), you realize that you don't know how to define any of these variables (for me personally or otherwise), then this is damn frightening - especially if one of your goals is to go on later and teach others ("the blind teaching the blind"). Now if you were to change what you said to instead say, "The only thing anyone needs to know about practicing any music at any level during your lifetime to have fun," then I couldn't agree more (though this would depend on your definition of fun). Just so there's no ambiguity, my personal definition of fun in this context is not only progressing towards my goals, but clearly understanding how I did so and may continue to do so beyond any reasonable doubt (as well as eventually passing on the knowledge to others).
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Journal 1: Sun. 7/21/13. Started to work out fingering. I penciled into my Henle edition and tried out the fingering of my edition of 18 Preludes, edited by Willard Palmer and published by Alfred. (I tried them out by playing HS, slowly so as not to make errors.) The Palmer fingering works well in most places, solves some problems in a few places that would have eluded me, and seems remarkably wierd in a few measures. I went back and forth, trying it slowly in Palmer's fingering and in the fingering that makes more sense to me, but am still undecided.
This edition also has articulation suggestions (slurred throughout, for the most part) and dynamics suggestions. I'm not sure about these; I'll listen to some recordings and see if I get any ideas. I really would like to read some of the treatises (both historical and current) about Baroque style.
Journal 2: Sun. 7/21/13. Searched on "BWV 927" on YouTube and listened to several recordings. Of notable interest are Angela Hewitt, Glenn Gould (listed as Marcelo Gandolfi for some reason), UIPianoPed, ecolepiano. Also listened to several student renditions which ranged from adequate to painful. There are subtle issues to work out, like which voice to bring out when, what articulation to use, and just how fast to go (although judging by the exemplars, the only answer to that is: fast). But the biggest glaring feature that distinguishes the performances I like from the others, is an open and flowing quality to the playing. For example, in the figures of three eighth notes at the beginning, these can either be bashed out (bad) or touched lightly (good). Even if they are brought out above the sixteenth notes, as when they appear in the right hand (in some performances), the good performers still give them a light quality. I'm not even sure if these are the right words. The huge challenge for me will be to capture this overall quality of the piece, that I can't even describe. I can hear it though, so maybe I will be able to use my hearing to guide my playing in the right direction.
I don't hear any added ornaments, except perhaps a RH mordent at the end. This is good; I think there will be enough challenging here for me without also trying to get good at fast ornaments. Something to think about for the future though: developing my ability to ornament. I think I'd like to work at that purely as exercises to start with; whenever they come up in a piece I'm too impatient to learn the piece to want to take the time I need to get the ornaments right (maybe Bernhard's method rigorously applied would help me with that problem in learning an ornamented piece, though).
Another big challenge for me will be bringing this up to tempo. I've never played these kinds of sixteenth note runs this fast. Thanks for these journal entries.I am just wondering whether the Henle edition does not come with fingering. Were the fingerings of the 2 editions different? I understood that you do not have access to piano for 2 days. How did you try the fingering HS?
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how to deal with the coordination difficulties in putting hands together and how they may relate to the above, etc. Bobpickle, At the moment, I am learning Canon in D Pachelbel and I am struggling putting hands together for a specific section of 4 measures. I have already spent 3 days, 30 min a day on this section and still not struggling to play through these 4 measures. Can you advise step by step how I should be learning it using Bernhard method.
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JosephAC, apparently all Henle Bach editions come in two versions: fingered and unfingered. I didn't know this when I got my Henle Little Preludes And Fugues, and by the luck of the draw it's unfingered. I'm wondering if I should bite the bullet and get the fingered version instead. (I have probably approaching $100 worth of Henle Bach books that I might want to replace; how depressing.)
I tried out the fingering on my piano at home this morning before I left on my road trip.
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Correction to Journal 1: the marks I took to be slurs are in fact phrase marks. The introduction to the Palmer edition says "it is clear that Bach expected the notes to be played cleanly and well articulated at all times." So, not an endless legato.
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.... I'm wondering if I should bite the bullet and get the fingered version instead. (I have probably approaching $100 worth of Henle Bach books that I might want to replace; how depressing.)
I wouldn't. It'll take time to work out fingering that's best for your hand, but you'll be better for it. I used to think the fingering in the score was sacred, but now only see them as suggestions, and with fingered Bach editions, sometimes the fingering forces an articulation that YOUR musical mind might disagree with. Have fun! I'm following your progress! Forrest
Mompou, Cancion y Danza #6
some Chopin, some Bach (always), Debussy
My beliefs are only that unless I can prove them.
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You're looking at the fingering and listening to recordings?
This is not the Bernhard method.
What happens before sitting at the piano or looking at the score is learning the whole piece as sound in the head. Next is analysing the score, harmonic progression, phrasing, dynamics, texture, motifs, etc.
The third step is to play through the score looking for technical difficulties. After this comes assigning the section lengths for learning. I'm not exactly sure where the fingering is done but I would suspect that it's after this stage and the first thing done when beginning each section.
Do you have a better idea, Bob, of when the fingering is assigned?
Speaking of fingering, the unfingered Bach editions are not to be sniffed at. If fingering is important to you then you might want to check out the IMSLP editions for ideas on fingering or buy cheaper versions fingered by different editors. I have several editions of the inventions all edited by different folks and a prized copy that was unfingered and my own fingering written in only after I finished each piece.
I typically begin Bach with a variety of editions all on the rack together. As I'm usually only working a couple of bars a day it's no hardship to compare all the editions once I've tried my own intuitive fingering and come up short of complete success. I don't think I've ever used all the fingering of one edition.
There's a lot to be said for intelligently tackling your own fingering especially when comparing editions that are fingered differently and you try to find out why.
Richard
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Richard, thank you for the redirect about Bernhard's method.
Do I learn the piece as sound by listening to recordings, looking at the score, both at different times, and/or both at the same time?
Journal 3: Monday, July 22, wee hours of the morning before going to sleep. (This is from before I read Richard's post, but curiously apropos.). Went over the score many times listening to it silently in my head, thinking about patterns in the music, where phrases might end, what it might sound like to bring out one voice or the other. Realized there's a ton of subtlety about this piece that I don't know how long it would take me to figure out. I mean "figure out" as in deciding on an interpretation, not as the later step of figuring out how to deliver that interpretation. This might mean it's a long time before I start working on it at the keyboard, if to follow Bernhard's method I'm to work this all out in advance. On the other hand, I don't necessarily want to have only one fixed rendition. I want to develop the freedom to play it in different ways at different times. On the other other hand, don't confuse freedom to vary the rendition with the lack of ability to deliver a given rendition at will. (That is, if the piece comes out differently at different times, it should be because I'm controlling the differences, and not because it's random and I can't deliver any single chosen interpretation at will.)
Richard, how well do I need to know the piece for this initial step? Be able to sing (or internally audiate it) at will without the score? Or something less than that?
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As far as I can recall you should be able to audiate the whole thing from memory before even looking at the score. At this audio only stage it would be good if you could break down the structure into exposition, different subjects, and the parts of different forms, eg. ABACAB etc. without necessarily having to determine key changes or other complexities.
I recall Bernhard being surprised when he first saw the score compared to how he had visualised it.
In some ways it's a shame we didn't do this in the analysis thread. Ah, me! We live and learn. If and When we get back there we might add the kind of practical analysis needed here, before attempting to learn a piece, as part of the theoretical analysis we do.
Once you get to the score you continue to listen to recordings and continue to refrain from playing while getting into the harmonic analysis.
Richard
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You're looking at the fingering and listening to recordings?
This is not the Bernhard method.
What happens before sitting at the piano or looking at the score is learning the whole piece as sound in the head....
Every good teacher I have ever worked with or talked to has always made room for two things: - the student's particular learning style and strengths and weaknesses - intelligent, independent thinking in conjunction with their teaching. In a relationship with a live teacher, that teacher will adjust how much he imposes things, giving guidance that will have the student figure things out on her own but along that guidance, and also free reign in some areas. The teacher will also adjust all of these as the student grows, because students don't stay the same. As soon as you have a written system, all of that disappears. It is important not to apply such a thing rigidly. I've read PianoStudent88's posts for several years, and from everything I know, what she is doing seems spot on, regardless of what might be written in that system. Surely there is room for thinking and experimenting, and doing whatever works?
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Yes, agreed, but this is an experimental thing. She might well learn something important doing it this way like lose the reliance she places on the score and increase the confidence in her own hearing.
I think this is an important step and while she's trying out the system it seems like a good idea to add it in. When else will she try it?
Richard
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What I read seems like an excellent stepping stone or bridge between the world of reading and the world of hearing music. It just seemed right. You go from your strong side to your weak side, and you knit a bond between the two. There is also a balance to be struck as you make that journey.
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I wanted to check about something. Bobpickle, this comes from a post of yours in the other thread on practicing but it's still on this subject. You were writing here about things students might do while practising in between (traditional) lessons: ... or wander back to the intuitive method in their practice, My attention was caught by the word "intuitive" which is part of something negative here. Does Bernhard say anything about students' instincts, intuition and similar?
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For this piece, I agree with Richard in that I'm experimenting with doing this method as much as we can tell from how Bernhard describes it (even if Bernhard with different students might vary some things in ways that he hasn't written about).
I haven't read very much about Bernhard's preparatory Stage 1. Richard or Bob, do you have any links?
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I don't think there's much to read. Most of the detail is on what happens once practise at the piano begins.
I made notes when I read it, a good while ago now, and that's all I have.
1. Listen to recordings and imagine what the score will look like. Do not rush this stage. Only look at the score when the whole piece can be played in the mind.
2. Study the score. Harmonic progressions, repetitions, motifs, textures, climaxes, phrasing. Again, do not rush this stage. You don't need to memorise the score but it should be familiar. Continue listening to recordings.
3. Sight read through the whole piece. The only consideration at this stage is technical difficulty.
4. Plan the learning sequence, difficult sections first. This is the equivalent of a film director planning the shooting sequence for a movie.
5. Work on each separate section, difficult ones first, and begin memorising.
6. Join the piece, in larger sections if necessary, and play the whole piece at half speed.
7. Work on interpretation.
8. Treat defined parts as separate (e.g. Sonata or suite)
This is the basis of the advice I've given to others in the Mendelssohn and Grieg recitals, in the recital or the analysis threads or in PM's as well as to my own undertakings.
Stage 1 was a new idea to me when I read it. It wasn't realistic before YouTube. Now I find it speeds up the learning process at the cost of reducing the variety of music in the car.
Stage 3 was a joke when I was taking lessons, the rest is stuff I got from my teacher or had before lessons began.
Hope it helps.
Richard
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Hi Richard,
Here's an extract from my collection of Bernhard method:
1. The first stage is exploratory.
• Sight-read through the piece to identify the difficult sections
• Analyze the piece.
• Listen to CDs of the piece
• Break it all down in manageable sections to practice.
• Figure out for each section the best fingering.
• Plan how you are going to tackle the piece; how many passages, how long the passages are going to be, how you are going to join the passages.
Most of this stage is done away from the piano. The end result of this stage is to have a thorough knowledge of the piece (theoretically) and to have a plan typed up to master the piece in as little time as possible.
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[cross-posted: this was in reply to Richard.]
Step 1: schedule Step 2 for July 2014, when I will have finished absorbing BWV 927 aurally.
Do you suggest continuing with BWV 927, or for this test drive of Bernhard's method would you suggest switching to a piece whose score I haven't seen?
Last edited by PianoStudent88; 07/22/13 10:51 PM.
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